Sudden changes in spring or fall looks — from plaids to solid stripes, fitted leggings to worn boyfriend jeans — can be turned out quickly by Bangladesh’s estimated four million garment workers, mostly women stooped over their sewing machines for long, back-breaking days, most earning $39 a month.

All the iconic labels can be found inside Bangladesh’s 5,000 factories — H&M, Zara, Primark, Hudson’s Bay Co., J.C. Penney, Joe Fresh, Walmart. Open up your closet and chances are you’ll find a piece of clothing with a small tag that reads: “Made in Bangladesh.”

Western consumers relish the $10 T-shirts that make them feel as if they are getting a bargain in a world with few breaks.

Yet fashion comes at a high, and often hidden, price.

From 2005 to the Rana Plaza collapse six months ago, at least 1,900 garment workers have died in unsafe working conditions.

Between 2006 and 2009, 414 garment workers died in 213 factory fires, according to the Asia Monitor Resource Centre and the Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defence Department. The worst fire came last November, when 117 died at the Tazreen factory.

When the illegally constructed Rana Plaza fell, 1,129 died — the worst garment industry disaster ever — it led to a clarion call for change.

Everyone — the brands, factory owners, government and human rights organizations — knew what was going on in Bangladesh, says Peter McAllister, director of the Ethical Trading Initiative. Based in London, the group represents 80 corporate members, including Europe’s biggest fashion producers, non-governmental organizations and global unions, with a collective membership of 160 million workers.

But this time, they could no longer turn a blind eye to the chronic problems bedevilling the garment manufacturing sector in developing countries.

Fear and resistance

Nowhere are the stakes higher than in Bangladesh.

With nearly $15 billion in exports in 2010, fast fashion is Bangladesh’s most important industrial sector, representing 75 per cent of its gross domestic product and total exports, according to a recent McKinsey & Co. report.

By 2020, Bangladesh’s garment exports are expected to hit $42 billion a year. For the country’s powerful — the politicians and the factory owners — transformational change is viewed with suspicion, fear and resistance.

The arrival of industry in Bangladesh should have been good news. It could have lifted one of the world’s poorest countries out of poverty, and there are signs that it has.

The retailers came looking for cheap labour and found it among Bangladesh’s desperately poor — and therefore willing — workers.

But cheap labour shouldn’t mean exploited labour, says McAllister.

“There is a sort of genuine cost advantage that could be exploited, and then there is the exploitation of that, if you like,” he says.

Garment workers earn a minimum wage of $39 a month, or 3,000 taka. A new minimum wage rate is expected to be set next month. Bangladeshi factory owners believe rates will rise by 50 to 80 per cent and they want retailers to help pay for the hike. The workers are hoping to see their wages jump to $102 a month.

But past plans for reform failed as soon as the world looked away. Comprehensive building codes and zoning laws are in place but are not followed, McAllister says. Laws governing wages, safety, child labour and union organizing are routinely ignored. Many brands, such as Loblaw and Walmart, hired inspectors and conducted audits but this has, in some cases, fostered double bookkeeping — cheating by hiding or faking conditions and bribing officials.

“So you have a chronic set of things going on, into which you insert industry from North America or Europe looking for the best value for their garments, and they’ll negotiate aggressively on that — price per piece, delivery dates, quality and so on,” he says.

“Almost every dimension has weakness around it,” says McAllister. “This paints a pretty bleak picture. That doesn’t mean we don’t think some of our members have tried over the years to do the right thing. It is an ongoing battle with the suppliers.”

McAllister’s ETI is a major force behind the Bangladesh Accord for Fire and Building Safety — a binding, five-year-long legal agreement that promises to improve working conditions. It has been signed by 103 brands, including Loblaw Cos. Ltd., owner of Joe Fresh and the only Canadian corporation.

Earlier this month, the accord published on its website a list of all the factories the brands use in Bangladesh — including subcontractors. This information has been rarely collected or shared.

Canadian Brad Loewen has now been appointed a chief safety inspector, and factory inspection reports will be issued.

Another 23 North American brands, including the Hudson’s Bay Co. and Walmart, have formed their own group, the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety.

The two plans appear similar in nature: five-year undertakings that ensure fire and safety inspections inside the factories that supply the retailers. All inspections will employ uniform standards and expectations.

The accord, which is backed by several large labour unions representing more than 50 million members, is thought to have more teeth. As a legally binding agreement, it is backed up by arbitration and the courts. Corporations that don’t live up to their promises can be sued and factories blacklisted.

The alliance is an agreement among corporations and the Bangladeshi government — no union group representing workers has signed it. It is believed North American firms shied away from the accord, fearing lawsuits in their home countries.

Issues such as wages, benefits and child labour are not part of either pact, says Bob Jeffcott of the Toronto-based Maquila Solidarity Network.

“Both are about safety issues and that is all they are about,” he says.

All major fashion corporations contacted by the Star said they are steadfastly against child labour. It is against their corporate codes of conduct and they do not knowingly use factories that employ children illegally. Bangladesh law prohibits children under 14 from working in garment factories.

But independent global auditors, the U.S. Congress and Star reporters in Dhaka all found child labour to be endemic in Bangladesh, especially in smaller factories.

Brands that belong to ETI, such as H&M and Primark, remove children found working in any supplier’s factory and enrol them in school.

It is much harder to police the subcontractors, those companies that help fill the orders for the larger factories that have signed contracts with the big brands.

This is where any well-intentioned oversight of the supply chain breaks down. Subcontractors are used for a reason — there is a lot of pressure on suppliers to meet order deadlines at a certain price and they fear if they don’t get it done, they’ll lose future business, says Jeffcott.

“Subcontractors are another issue almost untouched in all of this, and it is not just in Bangladesh, but everywhere,” he says.

Some alliance members, such as Walmart, have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to subcontractors, refusing to do business with them.

“There is no simple fix. We will have another fire, most certainly, sometime in our five years. But if the accord is transformational here, then this is worth fighting for,” McAllister says.

Transparency urged

Labour activists and human rights organizations have long advocated for best practices, which only now are being widely accepted by accord and alliance members. These include trained inspectors on the ground, paid for by retailers, and the publication of the names of the factories where clothes are made. This allows everyone, including consumers, to connect the dots.

But labour activists caution true accountability will only come with transparent public reporting. They point to Cambodia as an example.

After sweatshop horrors were uncovered in running-shoe factories in Cambodia in the mid-1990s, corporate responsibility initiatives and promises were undertaken. Agreements were signed and Better Factories Cambodia was created to improve workers rights by conducting factory inspections and publicizing them.

But once those agreements expired, what had been public information became private again. Inspection reports were shared only with factories and the brands.

Now, BFC is promising to go back to transparent reporting, starting in January.

Accord members have to agree to such disclosure, which has long been provided by retailers such as Nike, but not by others such as Haggar Canada and HBC, the makers of Canada’s Olympic uniforms, which consider the information proprietary and confidential.

‘Defining moment’

Six months after the Rana Plaza collapse, only one firm has directly compensated any of the victims and their families, and that is the grand dame of British fast fashion: Primark, owned by the grocery giant Associated British Foods.

A Primark team was immediately on the ground and even though the company only had one supplier in the building, with 450 employees, a decision was made to compensate all 4,000 who worked at Rana, says Lister.

“It was the right thing to do. You sit there and think, ‘We can’t just do it for 450 people. We do it for all.’”

Providing compensation has not been easy. With help from Dhaka University and the Bangladeshi army, Primark scoured hospitals and villages to come up with one of the only comprehensive lists of victims. They are being compensated with direct payments, using mobile telephone banking.

However, most of the Rana workers contacted by the Star say they have not received any compensation.

Primark won’t say how much it has spent or intends to spend.

“What is the budget? Frankly, it will be whatever it will be in terms of Rana Plaza compensation,” Lister says.

As for long-term compensation, he says it will take “months” to get to the point where that can be ironed out.

Almost $77 million in compensation is being sought for the survivors and families of Rana employees.

Last month in Geneva, Primark and Canada’s Loblaw Cos. Ltd. were two of only nine companies to attend a compensation meeting.

Former Loblaw spokesperson Julija Hunter says the company is still trying to figure out how to provide individual compensation.

The grocer has donated $1 million to the Loblaw REVIVE Project, in association with the Centre for Rehabilitation of the Paralysed, to help provide victims with medical care, physical therapy, mobility aids and vocational training, in addition to loss-of-income support during the treatment and rehabilitation phase.

In conjunction with Save the Children, the Loblaw Thrive Project will address critical health, peer counselling, education and child protection needs in and around the affected area of the factory collapse, she adds.

Loblaw executive chairman Galen Weston has previously said the Joe Fresh apparel business adheres to a robust social responsibility regime that regularly inspects factories.

After Rana, the company sent in its own inspectors and promptly pulled out of seven factories.

Loblaw will not disclose the specific reasons for pulling out or make its inspection reports public.

Joe Mimran, the creative director at Joe Fresh, and Weston refused to comment to the Star for this series.